Throw It On the Fire
by Astrid
Summary: A song-fic involving Mark. Read and Review


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A/N: _These characters aren't mine. I wish they were, but they aren't, and I'm not making a profit so don't sue me. The lyrics are from a song called 'Smoke' written by Ben Folds Five. It's a beautiful song and the band usually provides me with more inspiration than I write down (or post here) so this is my little thank you to that album. Read on. Please review. Much thanks._

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Leaf by leaf and page by page 

Throw this book away

All the sadness all the rage

Throw this book away

My hands are wrapped around my small, blue journal and I'm staring at it like it did something to offend me. I'm sick of all of this. All these stupid things that I kept writing down in this journal like I was some high school girl keeping track of her first kiss. No more. Every time I look at it I just remember and that's the last thing I want to do right now. Remember. He's gone, Mimi's gone, Collins is gone. Maureen and Joanne don't care. I'm gone too. So no more of this book, there's nothing left to write in it. Not unless I want to write down the different reasons I can think of for not sleeping at night. My knuckles are white. Loosening my grip I flip open the front cover.

Rip out the binding and tear the glue

And all of the grief we never even knew 

We had it all along

Now it's smoke

So what can I do with it? As if to answer my own question, I find myself tearing out the pages, ripping some in half on the way. It's not out of anger, I'm not even upset, I just...can't anymore. I can't keep track of misery like some morbid voyeuristic freak. The pages come out mostly in a whole, and I start separating them into chunks. Smaller chunks. Separate pages.

The things we've written in it 

Never really happened.

All the things we've written in it 

Never really happened.

Maybe I can pretend. Maybe I can just act like I never went through these things at these times. Just ignore it like I do everything else. At least that's what he told me. I'm numb. I bury myself in this camera and this book and I just burrow away from reality. I put a filter on things and let in only what I want to. So what's wrong with that? It's safe. It's easy. It's my life.

And all of the people come and gone

Never really lived.

All the people come have gone. 

No one to forgive.

Smoke.

Roger's probably halfway to Santa Fe by now. Well, I can just forget about him, because he won't call. That would make him weak, and he'd never be weak. He'd never need me. So I can just forget. Pretend like he's a character in one of my little movies, because that's all he thought he was. Hypocrite. Bloody hypocrite. And Mimi. Mimi's been missing for a few weeks now, and we tried finding her. We did, but there was nothing. We scoured every hospice, shelter, homeless community, everything. I even went to the Cat Scratch Club to talk to her boss, some of her customers...nothing.

We will not write a new one.

There will not be a new one.

Another one, another one.

The words on the pages catch my eye and I make the stupid mistake of actually reading them. I flip through them and then one page sticks out. My chicken scratch is sprawled over the page in a more neurotic and angry fashion than usual. So I read. 

Here's an evening dark with shame.

(Throw it on the fire)

Here's the time I took the blame.

Halloween. Angel's funeral. I didn't cry. I just said a few words like Collins asked me to, and watched as everyone fell apart. Mimi screamed at Roger in this voice that I didn't know she had in her. She was hurt. So was I. He was leaving. And the words on this page capture that moment almost like I had filmed it instead of just wrote about it. But it was my fault. They were falling apart because I couldn't keep them together. I was the one who was supposed to moderate and make sure everything went smoothly, and that people got along. But I couldn't do anything. I barely got out a few protests at the screaming matches.

__

(Throw it on the fire)

So what happens now? Picking up the loose papers that record that night, I march over to the small stove that's radiating little heat and toss them in. I'll just burn my memories. They're all that's left, and I don't want them.

Here's a time we didn't speak 

It seemed for years and years and

Here's a secret no one will ever know 

The reasons for the tears

They are 

Smoke.

And then there was that fight. "Mark's in love with his work. Mark hides in his work." God, I can still hear everything. I pick up the pages and scan them carefully, but I don't really need to read anything. I remember every word he said. He called me a failure, lonely, a liar. Well, at least I didn't run! I stuck it out until everything else came crashing down around me, I stayed here so I could be what I am now, the only thing left standing. It's like I'm standing at the fall of some great empire, watching these buildings crumble and people dying, and I'm standing here, carefully avoiding the rubble. I'm getting out of the way, isn't that the goal? To be the last one standing? Doesn't that make me the winner?

Where do all the secrets live, they travel in the air

You can smell them when they burn

They travel.

I watch as the little papers burn themselves, and toss more in. There's nothing left in this journal for me, I need to start over. How? I don't know. I just have to take it as it comes. If Roger comes back, he comes back and we work from there. If he doesn't, he doesn't and I learn to deal with it. I just hope we find Mimi. The police have been alerted, people are on the look out for her. My biggest fear is that she's sick. She's sick and she doesn't have her medication. I wish I knew where she was. I wish I knew where I was supposed to be.

Those who say the past is not dead

Stop and smell the smoke.

You keep saying the past is 

not dead.

Stop and smell the smoke

But there's that part of me that still thinks I can fix this. A little chunk of me still thinks that I can go back in time and reword something or alter something and everything will be gone. It's the same part of me that wants to preserve these paper memories that are burning with fervor now. It's too late. It's too late, they're burning, they're gone. Reduced to little carbon scraps of nothing. Do that to your actual memories and you'll be almost on your way. Forget. Just forget.

You keep on saying the past is not even past and

You keep saying.

We are, smoke.


End file.
